


At Seventeen

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - High School, Awkward Crush, Coming of Age, Crushes, First Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Loneliness, M/M, Pining, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 06:30:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: His movement to Hanschen was slow, but successful. As he had managed to lean over and pull the glasses from his face as gently as possible. He had spent what felt like five minutes and turned out to be half an hour glancing between the green grass the handsome boy asleep in it. And now, he could see the long eyelashes resting on Hanschen’s cheekbones and the soft expression his relaxed brows made.“ Ernst,” His serene mouth moved, suddenly shaking Ernst from his trance. “Can you put those back? The sun hurts my eyes.”





	At Seventeen

_I learned the truth at seventeen_  
That love was meant for beauty queens  
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles  
Who married young and then retired

He hadn’t thought of what it would be like after that night. He just assumed that Bobby would fall into his arms. Instead of pestering him and his friends during lunch, maybe he would come sit with them. Maybe he would start holding conversations with Hanschen instead of glancing at him as they passed in the hallway. Maybe he’d actually speak to Hanschen at school instead of calling his name in the parking lot after class.

But he really wasn’t all that shocked to look across the quad at Bobby’s table to see his sharing a seat with Greta. He was leaning close to the tall, blond girl with one arm around her waist, the other propping himself up on the table among the tater tots and textbooks from a decade ago.

No. Hanschen didn’t feel anything. Or at least he forced himself not to feel anything. He didn’t want to. Kids always make mistakes at prom. That’s just what happens. Sometimes kids end up drinking or making fools of themselves or coming home high.

Or they hand off their virginity to the class president in the backseat of your car.

So Hanschen kept his eyes locked on Bobby, remembering that night only a few days ago. But Saturday night felt like years away from Monday lunch.

“Hey, Hansi,” Ilse’s voice broke through the white noise. “Are you alright?”

His blue eyes moved to her gaze. She had been there that night and knew full well what had happened in the aftermath. So her gaze was sympathetic and warmed Hanschen to the very core.

He nodded and looked back down to the carton of milk sat in front of him. He used his bitten down fingernails to pick at the paperboard layers. He’d much rather look down at that then look up at his friends glaring back at him.

Melchior was the first to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen over the table since Hanschen turned back to the group. “So…Who got the Chemistry homework?”

 

 _The valentines I never knew_  
The Friday night charades of youth  
Were spent on one more beautiful  
At seventeen I learned the truth

The honking didn’t top, long after Hanschen had already waved out his window, signalling to Melchior that he was coming downstairs. He was laying on the horn from the moment Hanschen closed his window and grabbed his backpack to the moment he opened his front door with Melitta and Thea glaring at him.

“Hey, fuck off!” Hanschen shouted running over to bang his fist on the roof of the Volkswagen. “You’re gonna wake up the whole block.”

Melchior finally stopped honking and watched his newest companion throw open the back door and climb into the seat beside Wendla and Moritz. In the front, Ilse peered over the back of her seat. “You look hot, who are you trying to impress?”

Hanschen looked over the outfit he had worn to school. Not much more than the tee shirt and jeans he wore every day. But Ilse’s hand reached out to tilt his chin back up. “No. it’s your hair. You look smoking, Hansi.” She smiled with her wide, shining white smile. “You do something new?”

“Cut the shit,” Moritz hit her hand away playfully. “Let’s talk about what matters. You bring the Uno, Hanschen?”

The blonde nodded, pulling the deck of cards wrapped in a rubber band from the front pocket of his cheap bag. Ilse cheered much louder than she should have as the small car peeled out of Hanschen suburban street.

Their spot was empty, as it always was. The field seemed to stretch out forever and ever, so far that they couldn’t tell where the grass stopped and the sky started. It was all dark for as far as the eye could see. But they knew they were only ten minutes out of town and on the other side of the field was the power plant, so Melchior knew not to drive too far off the road.

The only light was from the the three of four electric lanterns they had brought along, sat on top of a blanket Ilse had brought along. Their dim lights made the cards hard to read, but the five still played blindly and fumbling with the rules.  

But when Wendla reached into her purse and pulled out a mostly full bottle of wine, they decided to forgo the game completely.

“How the hell did you get this?” Moritz asked, lounging on his back before taking a big sip.

Wendla shrugged, tugging her cardigan closer around her small body. “My parents think I’m the good kid compared to my sister. They don’t suspect a thing.”

Melchior took the sip from the bottle Moritz handed him. “God,” he mused, looking at them all with huge, blissful eyes. The dim light made his eyes look like two black holes “This is so just classically teenage of us.”

“Classic teenagers don’t play Uno,” Ilse corrected and stuck her foot out into the pile of cards. She had ditched the shoes a while ago, now had her toes poking through her white socks. She had always loved the feeling of grass.  “They get wasted at parties and have sex and….they’re cool.”

After a moment of two of silence, Hanschen sighed, “We’re cool. I think we’re cool.”

 

 _And those of us with ravaged faces_  
Lacking in the social graces  
Desperately remained at home  
Inventing lovers on the phone

If the phone had rang once that night, he would have jumped out of his skin. But it didn’t. From when he had woken up that morning to now, closing in on midnight. How many Sundays would be spent like this, he wondered. Laying on his front on his floor with his eyes locked on the phone his parents were cautious to put in his room. They had been afraid that he was going to stay up all night talking on it.

How wrong they were.

The novels that normally attracted him felt meaningless. He had the volumes of Edgar Allan Poe before him. He had War and Peace. He had everything he could ever want on those pages. But he didn’t want to even look at them. He instead chose to sit there in his own brain, wallowing.

Maybe Ilse would call.

No, she and Moritz were going to a movie tonight to celebrate his first A in English.

Maybe Melchior would call.

No, he studied on Sunday nights.

Maybe Wendla would call.

No, he should just stop hoping.

So the room remained silent, save for the dreamy sighs coming from Hanschen every few minutes and the absent minded turn of pages of the books he had already read a dozen times.

But suddenly, through the deafening white noise, broke the sound of the ring he thought he’d never hear.

As Hanschen stood his mind was flooded with all his friends what they might be offering. Then, he hit the jackpot. He recalled how he had written his phone number in wobbly marker script on Bobby’s hand. It had been right before they had crawled into the back of his car, telling the dashing teenager in a tight tux that he ‘needs to call’ soon.

Two weeks is soon, right?

He ran to the phone, praying that the smears he saw on Bobby’s hand at the end of the night were still legible. Maybe he had gotten lonely and Hanschen needed to hop on his bike and ride it across town to Bobby’s house. Maybe he’d be waiting for him with open arms, smiling his big, movie star smile. Then he’d chuckle the chuckle that was still burning Hanschen’s eardrums since that night in the back of the car.

“Hello?”

“Hi, can I speak to Nancy?”

He felt his heart hit the ground as soon as the woman’s voice came through the receiver.

“You have the wrong number.”

 

 _Who called to say, “Come dance with me”_  
And murmured vague obscenities  
It isn’t all it seems  
At seventeen

Hanschen wished he would have known you had to reserve seats to graduation when he first suggested they go.  “I’m so sorry,” He muttered to the others leaning against the chain link fence. Below them, the football field was filled with supportive parents in the bleachers cheering for their kids on the portable white stage. They looked so small from where they were. “I thought we could just…I dunno…get in.”

With a sigh, Wendla reached over to lovingly touch Hanschen’s shoulder. “It’s ok, Hansi, none of us really know any of the seniors.”

The echoing voice of their principal was barely audible as he listed off names of the students taking their diplomas.

“Ya know. We’re technically seniors now,” Melchior muttered, keeping his wide eyes on the crowd below. The thought made a shiver run down Hanschen’s spine. He looked from Melchior and Moritz, the pair he had known since first grade, to Ilse, who moved there halfway through their sophomore year, to Wendla who transferred across town at the beginning of middle school.

Then, he couldn’t help but think one year ahead.  To when Ilse left to the West coast for art school. Or when Moritz and Wendla would move up to New York to chase their dreams of being an iconic actress/ techie duo. Or when Melchior was going to be basically guaranteed into any law school he wanted.

And Hanschen was here. And that’s where he’d stay.

He wasn’t creative or talented like the girls. Or smart like Melchior. Or a technical mastermind like Moritz. He was just Hanschen. Hanschen who planned to go to Graduation without invites.

“Hey, who wants to go to Joe’s and get a milkshake?” He let the suggestion break his mental downward spiral. The others all looked to one another, nodding eagerly. “Cause this is boring as hell.”

Wendla turned on her heel, gesturing for the others to follow her to her minivan.

 

 _A brown-eyed girl in hand-me-downs_  
Whose name I never could pronounce  
Said, “Pity, please, the ones who serve  
They only get what they deserve”

The whispers had been heard all around their town. They all said she was coming back, the queen of the streets. His mother knew her as the class president/ valedictorian/cheerleader who ended up marrying her prom king boyfriend and moving to California. Wendla’s mom recalled her as the wife of a politician who went from a rich daddy to a rich husband.  The Gabor’s had known her as a resident of their church and the most talented member of their choir.

Ilse knew her as the out of date prom queen of suburbia. And she repeated this sentiment between puffs of her skinny cigarette.

“How do you get a whole town so far up your ass that you can leave for twenty years and still have parents telling your kids about how cool you were!” She rolled her eyes and stretched out among the soft grass and vibrant poppies. She offered the cigarette to Hanschen, who took it graciously. “I mean. The whole reason she’s moving back is because her husband ran for senator and lost miserably.”

The blond boy rolled his eyes after blowing out a puff of grey smoke. “That’s tragic. That she has to be back here. I’d hate that.”

“That’s what she gets. She’s allowed to get out of here because she’s pretty,” Ilse explained as if she were a professor. “Look at all of our parents. They all had to stay behind. This town really sucks you in.”

“Well if she’s too beautiful then why is she coming back? If your theory is correct then she should be off living the highlife?” He leaned over the girl, blocking the sunlight from her freckled face. Dark and wavy hair laid out around her like a pillow.

She shrugged up at her companion. “I dunno. Maybe because she finally got what was coming to her.”

“What did she do wrong, Ilse?”

There was a pause. Ilse sucked in the nicotine and exhaled like it was her life course. “She was beautiful, Hanschen. Haven’t you heard?”

 

 _And the rich relationed hometown queen_  
Marries into what she needs  
With a guarantee of company  
And haven for the elderly

The new Robel house was a hot spot that week. They would drive by in their cars or on their bikes, looking around as they whizzed by. Some were even bold enough to walk by, staring at the home as they went.

It was huge and brick with a well groomed garden out front. They lived at the end of a cul-de-sac which they probably thought was the busiest in town.

So they felt no anxiety when they went to drive past, like everyone else had that boring summer. That is, except Hanschen, who stood outside of Melchior’s car nervously while his friends climbed in.

“I dunno…I just don’t want to look crazy,” He explained for the thousandth time, but the others rolled their eyes. This was the most exciting thing to have happened in the last month, since a fire broke out in the field next to the cemetery.  “They must think the people here are crazy.”

“No not at all, they must just think they live on a very busy cul-de-sac,” Moritz was quick to defend.

Still, he let them go on without him, leaving him stranded in his driveway. He went back in, but still came out only hours later as the sun was setting and curiosity got the best of him. He couldn’t drive, his parents were too strict to let him get his licence. So he had his old bike, a little bit too small for him with yellow paint chipping off to reveal the rust beneath. But, it was still trusty enough to get him to the big, fancy houses only five minutes away.

It’s not that he didn’t like in a nice house. Hell, his dad was an accountant and his mom was a nurse. They weren’t exactly struggling. But this house looked like the word ‘struggle’ wasn’t in their vocabulary. This whole neighborhood didn’t have people with silver spoons, they were made of silver spoons.

The house in question was at the very end, the stained glass windows beside the grand door were lit up, like some family inside were enjoying some sort of Hallmark movie bullshit dinner.

But as he slowed down to gaze  at the mini mansion, he noticed the garage was open. Inside it were stacks and stacks of moving boxes and two fairly expensive looking new cars. A long, thin figure was bent over one of the stacks. The starling shock of red he wore is what caught Hanschen’s eye, making him come to a stop almost subconsciously.

The figure was a male, maybe around the same age as Hanschen himself. But he could only tell that because the kid was tall. If he weren’t, he would look like thirteen, with freckled cheeks that were the only part of his lanky body that still had baby fat on them. Draped over his scrawny torso was a bright red tee shirt that matched the red bandana that he had tied across his head, keeping his brown hair out of his face.

Hanschen could look at him forever. And he had planned to, or at least until the boy looked up so he could make out what his eyes looked like.

But when he did look up, fear struck Hanschen, as those eyes were looking right at him.

Fumbling, he tried his hardest to get his bike moving again. He could feel his face turn reds as he heard a high, lilting voice cry out to him. “Hey! You live around here?”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck gotta go gotta go.

Finally, when hanschen managed to get his spastic feet onto the pedals, he took off like a very shay bullet. He took his second to look over his shoulder, as the boy who had wandered closer to Hanschen at the end of his driveway, watching the stranger rush away like a burglar.

Then, he watched Hanschen faceplant into his mailbox and topple over it.

 

 _Remember those who win the game_  
Lose the love they sought to gain  
In debentures of quality  
And dubious integrity

Hanschen usually didn’t like parties. Everytime he  had been invited to one in the past, he declined, instead opting to spend the night with his actual friends or alone in his room instead of in a crowded room filled with acquaintances.

But when he had been invited to Bobby’s going-away party, he knew better than to decline. He had actually never accepted in invitation faster in his life, even if it was through Bobby telling Thea to invite him when they ran into each other at the movies.

He didn’t dare tell his friends. They had all told him for the last two months that he needed to forget all about Bobby. So he had to take his beaten up boke over to Bobby’s house.

It wasn’t like those cheesy graduation barbeques that white people put on for their kids. In fact, Bobby’s parents weren’t even there. It was just a crowd of high schoolers in their upper-middle class two-story, all slightly intoxicated and flirting with anything that walked. Most probably didn’t even know it was for Bobby before he moved a few hours away for college.

Hanschen knew, though. In fact that was the first thing he did when he arrived and hid his bike in the bushes. Bobby didn’t answer the door, it was some sophomore girl he half-recognized. When he asked her where Bobby was, she just shrugged and offered him a beer.

He took it of course, but it didn’t deter him.

A few minutes were spent scouring the house. It would have been faster if he hadn’t been stopped every other second to be asked about his eye. When he did find Bobby in the kitchen, the first thing out of his mouth was: “Hey, Hanschen, what happened to your eye?”

The blond hurriedly looked down at his shoes, trying to avoid the hazel eyes staring down at him. “Yeah I uh… Hit it on a side-table when I uh… Fell out of bed.”  He couldn’t possibly think say that he was riding his bike and got distracted by a very cute boy. “But good job getting uh…accepted to college. Good luck.”

Bobby just shrugged aimlessly, taking a long sip of the cup of random liquor in his hand. “Thanks, dude. And thanks for coming. What have you been up to? It’s been a while.”

No mention of it. Not one. The first time since that night that they had spoken. But he didn’t think to bring up that the last time they were together, they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

“Yeah, it has been…” Hanschen muttered in response, feeling his anger bubble up inside of him. It was like he was being hit in the gut over and over by Bobby’s apathetic gaze. Maybe he didn’t remember Hanschen, so he looked back up in the hope that he’d suddenly recognize his face and didn’t before.

“So…” He muttered, his soft smile breaking his chiseled features. It warmed Hanschen to the core. He wanted to reach out and wrap his arms around Bobby, pulling him closer like before. And maybe, Bobby wanted that too. “Your blackeye….Did it hurt?”

Hanschen hadn’t ever felt like a deflated balloon until that moment. Like Bobby had be blowing him up and finally just let it go, watching it was it shrank into a latex raisin.

So he nodded, casting his eyes away and taking a final chug or beer, draining the can. “Yeah. It hurt like a bitch. I gotta go.”

Bobby looked like he might have followed, but instead of chasing after Hanschen, he leaned back on the counter and shrugged to his companions on how weird that guy was acting.

So, once again, the party was like any other, miserable. After 30 minutes of being asked about the bruise by a variety of strangers,  they had learned to leave him alone. So he sat there, on the back porch of the Maler household along with all the other miserable kids smoking and wathcing the girls play in the large, unnaturally blue pool.

God, he thought to himself for the thousandth time that night, men are pigs.

“Hey, how’d you get that black eye?”

Before even turning around, he was through with it. He shook his head, almost yelling back at the voice behind him, “I fucking hit my face isn’t that obvious, you dumb fucking-”

When he turned, his gaze was met by a pair of long legs in a pair of shorts decorated by lobsters. Looking up from where he was sitting, Hanschen’s eyes moved up to a familiar, warm face. His features radiated with warm, like he was made of sunshine. Tan skin met with perfectly brown eyes shrouded by eyelashes too long for a boy.

Oh shit, he was the boy.

“Oh….Hey,” He cursed himself under his breath before nervously introducing himself. “I’m Hanschen. Have we uh…met?”

“You tumbled face-first into my mailbox then ran away.”

“Oh.”

 

 _Their small town eyes will gape at you_  
In dull surprise when payment due  
Exceeds accounts received  
At seventeen

Maybe it’s weird to see two guys enjoying each other’s company. By the looks of the guests, it must’ve been. But Hanschen glared back at them, as if challenging them to try and tell him what he could or couldn’t do.

“Hanschen,” Ernst’s voice softly called to him. “Maybe they’re staring because we’re both wet.”

Suddenly, as if it had all been an out of body experience, Hanschen look down to see he was still dripping with pool water reeking of chlorine and had on only a pair of boxers clinging to his body for dear life. All his other clothes had been neatly folded by Ernst and were now tucked under his arm. At least Ernst had the dignity to keep on his lobster shorts.

“Well thank God most of them are asleep,” He gave a passing glance to the stoner on the couch staring at them and made quick work to jump over the sleeping teenagers on the living room floor.  Looking over his shoulder, Hanschen ushered Ernst to follow him. Ernst followed, a bit more shakily even though he was easily the more sober of the two. “Come on, Ernest.”

The smaller of the two chuckled, not bothering to correct him as the two crept almost silently down the hallway. He only tripped over one person, but he didn’t even wake up. For a second Hanschen was afraid the kid was dead, but saw a slight movement of the chest and saw he wasn’t dead, just in a comatose like state brought on by shitty weed.

The bathroom they had been venturing too was guarded by a couple that were widely known as the weird couple that all they did was sit together in silence and make out in the wierdest way. They didn’t say anything, just watched with heavily lidded eyes. They didn’t stop glaring until the Hanschen closed the bathroom door behind them.

“People don’t know how to keep to themselves,” The blond muttered, sitting on the edge of the shower. “Don’t they know staring is rude?”  

“We also wandered through the house dripping wet with your dick practically out,” Ernst chuckled.

Hanschen shrugged, looking over himself to see the fabric clinging to him in ways he definitely didn’t want. Maybe at another time, he would be embarrassed, but instead he set to work hanging out his damp clothes over the shower rod. That’s just what he gets when he jumps into the pool fully clothed.

“You think Bobby will be mad if I dry off my shorts with with his hairdryer,” Ernst’s light voice piped up from where he was sitting, digging through a plastic bin of curling irons and hair brushes he assumed was Bobby’s sister’s.

Hanschen shook his head, sitting on the counter across from his companion for the night. “Sure. Knock yourself out.”

Ernst plugged in the bright pink blow dryer and almost immediately turned around to point it at Hanschen’s chest. “Put your hands up, sucker.”

Hanschen laughed louder than he should have, “What are you gonna do? Dry me?”

Not hesitating, Ernst turned on the dryer and blew hot air directly into Hanschen’s face, giggling as he watched strands of blonde hair fly in all sorts of directions.  Hanschen continued to laugh, relishing in the heat. Ernst smiled softly, feeling giddy like a fourth grader with his first crush. Maybe it was because the person behind the dryer was so close he could see the freckles on his cheeks and the little moles on his neck and hands.

Only when it looked like Hanschen was having too much fun, did he turn the dryer away and pointed it down to dry off his wet shorts. It took a moment of so for the other to stifle his giggles, but he did eventually, watching Ernst diligently work on his shorts.

“How do you know Bobby, Ernest?” He asked after some time of silence.

Ernst rolled his eyes, speaking up over the whir of the dryer. “I don’t know him, really. Just met him uh….just once last month. Yeah, when I first moved here. I dunno if you know Max…?” He looked up to see Hanschen nod. Max was pretty nice. He was well known for always pulling out all the stops at the big game and leading pep rallies with all his energy. “Well, he lives down my block and invited me to hang out for a couple ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ drinks.”

“But you don’t drink,” Hanschen muttered, restating the fact he had been told earlier that night when he offered Ernst a sip of beer.

Ernst shuddered, as if remembering something that he didn’t want to. “Well, I did then. And I met Bobby.”

There was more to the story, but Hanschen didn’t push it. He just nodded, “Yeah. He’s alright.”

Ernst turned the blower on Hanschen’s pair of jeans and tee shirt, dripping with chlorinated water. He seemed content with his work, humming as he went. “What made you think it would be smart to jump in fully clothed?” He mused.

If there was any reason behind his actions, even Hanschen didn’t know it, he just remained sat on the edge of the tub, watching diligently. “I dunno, Ernest. But it was fun,” He extended a hand to Ernst, requesting the dryer. “Can I see that?”

“Sure,” He handed over the dryer and went digging thought his pile of dry clothes to find the calculator watch he had gotten for Hanukkah last year. Hanschen pointed the dryer towards his crotch to dry out the boxers. “It’s uhh, twelve thirty, we probably shouldn’t be so loud people are trying to sleep-”

“It’s what?”

“Twelve thirty.”

Throwing the dryer to the floor, Hanschen began frantically moving around, yanking his damp clothes from of the shower rod, “Shit, shit, shit!” He hissed, struggling to put on jeans that rubbed his skin in the worst way. “My curfew is eleven holy fuck.”

Ernst chuckled and turned off the dryer, thankful it didn’t break when it hit the tile. “Oh, sorry about that Hanschen.”

Not responding, he continued to desperately tug on his clothing.  By the time he got the shirt on and the pants mostly on, he rushed out of the bathroom and towards the front door. Following, Ernst watche dhim trip repeatedly over the sleeping. “Bye, Ernest, had a good time!” He called back, some dumb part of his brain still thinking to impress the pretty boy standing in the doorway as he ran barefoot from the house.

“It’s ERNST. No second E!”

 

 _To those of us who knew the pain_  
Of valentines that never came  
And those whose names were never called  
When choosing sides for basketball

Hanschen had never been super into sports. Not extremely at least, but enough to be able to hold his own and have some fun. He expected Ernst to be able to hold his own as well, what why he invited him over to play two-on-two with him, Melchior, and Moritz. But the second Ernst arrived at Melchior’s house, that was proven wrong.

“You doing alright, Ernst?” Hanschen asked his teammate after he had called the third water break. Ernst was doubled over, drinking from a water bottle Hansche had filled up for him. “You wanna step out and Melchi and I can play one on one?”

Ernst shook his head, looking over at the other two, chatting and passing the ball between them and discussing whether or not they wanted to order a pizza. “I’m good, Hansi. I’m fine. I’m great.” He panted out.

Ernst was never going to stop being stubborn, so Hanschen shrugged and called out to the other two. “Okay, guys, let’s play!”

Two minutes in and Ernst sounded like he was going to cough up a lung he was breathing so heavily. But he refused to call a timeout. And he would come to regret that when, while trying to steal the ball away from Moritz, he was knocked on his ass. And pretty hard too.

“Holy shit, Ernst,” Melchior called, walking over to help his new friend up. They had only hung out once or twice before, but he had already been getting along so well. Maybe just because Moritz liked him so damn much. “You alright, buddy?”

Ernst groaned, probably damning himself under his breath. “I’m good,”

The other three looked to one another with sympathetic eyes,knowing that he was lying. “Come on, Ernst,” Moritz groaned and helped Ernst to his feet with a grunt. The skinner of the two was holding his back and hissing in pain. “Me and Melchior was gonna shoot some hoops, you and Hanschen wanna go inside for a bit?”

With a wink, Moritz showed that he knew exactly what he was doing. This is what Hanschen gets for ranting to Moritz for hours about how pretty Ernst was. So Hanschen patted Ernst’s sore back, making him cringe. “Come on, Ernie. Let’s get some lemonade, alright?”

Thank God for Mrs Gabor for always keeping them stocked full of snacks like they were being shipped off to little league any moment with their capri suns and celery. Today, it was a tall pitcher of lemonade, mini raisin boxes, and a chocolate chip cookies. Ernst took an exhausted seat a the breakfast bar, slumped over the counter.

“You doing alright?” He asked the top of Ernst’s brown hair, because that was all he could see. A thumb popped up from the pile of boy on the table, signaling that he was alright but didn’t want to do much more than a slight movement. “You want some lemonade, Ernst?”

A muffled voice came from under Ernst’s folded arms. “No I’m good.”

Hanschen still poured him a drink and set the glass in front of him. A moment or two later, Ernst sat up a and revealed his bright red face. From his big ears to the tip of his nose looked were so red he practically became a cherry. He avoided looking at Hanschen, or even anywhere besides the glass right in front of him.

“What’s up, Ernst?” Hanschen asked after a pause filled with just Ernst sipping his lemonade. “You don’t seem alright.”

After a long sigh, Ernst could finally look up at Hanschen with sad eyes. “I just… I feel like an idiot.” He muttered. Hanschen now noticed the exact shade of brown his eyes were. They reminded him of the color of the bugs encased in amber that he saw on a museum field trip in fifth grade. He didn’t know what to do when Ernst suddenly looked away. “You just…. I feel like….” He sighed again.

Hanschen extended his hand to lay over Ernst’s. He felt his thin fingers and bulging knuckled underneath his fingertips, sending electric shocks through them both. “Hey. Just breath, Ernst. If you don’t want to tell me then-”

“You’re all so much better than me.”

There was a pause, like Hanschen didn’t know what to say. But in reality, all he could do was laugh at such a ridiculous concept. Ernst looked at him like he was crazy, not just for holding his hand but also for laughing in his face.

“What’s so funny?” He said in a small voice, like he was trying to shrink away. He tried to even shrink away from Hanschen’s touch and pull his hand away. But then he felt Hanschen tighten his previously loose grip.

“Ernst Robel,” He chuckled, “You are literally the embodiment of talent and grace and creativity. Don’t try to feed my anymore bullshit.”

 

 _It was long ago and far away_  
The world was younger than today  
When dreams were all they gave for free  
To ugly duckling girls like me

“Hey, are you asleep?”

He wished he could’ve been. The sun hurt his eyes a lot, but damn it all if he was going to turn away from the warmth. He stayed leaned against the tree, not bothering to move a foot of so to the shade that Ernst was sat under.

“Not yet, I wish I was,” He gazed down at the cop of War of the Worlds he intended to read, but instead decided to soak up the rays like a sunflower.  Ernst was beginning to notice that freckles he didn’t had when they first met were starting to pop out thought normally pale porcelain skin.  “It’s too bright.”

Ernst nodded, taking off his pair of aviators and handing them to his companion. Hanschen didn’t see at first, then suddenly noticed the hand extended to him. “Thanks, Ernie,” He muttered and put on the shades, placing a golden glow over the field. Now the sun wasn’t sending pulsing pain into his eyes, he could lean back against the bark.

But now, it wasn’t the sun keeping him up, it was the hum coming from Ernst’s lips.

For a minute or so, he listened. Listened to the sound of pages flipping, Ernst’s humming, and the very light breeze.

Across the field, their might have been kids making out at the powerplant in the distance. He used to want to be there, with them, imaging he was making out with Bobby or any random guy he made eye contact with at the mall or sometimes Melchior on a really bad day. Today, he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.

Or with anyone else.

“How’s your book, Ernst?”

“Good,” He replied. Although Hanschen couldn’t see him, he could hear him. “It’s a bit long winded but I love Wilde.”

Hanschen slid lower, father down to the base of the tree. “Wilde? Wasn’t he like….queer?”

The word fell from his mouth out of fear. He had realized what he saying halfway through his question but knew he couldn’t turn back. So he just kept his eyes closed and hoped Ernst wasn’t staring at him, questioning if the teenager lying next to him was the neighborhood “fag”. Only Ilse knew that he was.

Silence hung between them. No pages flipping or humming. Not even a breeze.

“Yeah. I think he was.”

“Weird, huh?”

“Yeah. Weird.”

The next silence was much less tense. Hanschen only then noticed that he had been holding his breath until that moment. He relaxed, his head now on the grass at the base of the oak. He then suddenly heard Ernst shift, perhaps even moving closer. The next thing he knew, a soft hand was laid on his head, fingers playing with the stands of dirty blond hair that had become brighter over the past two months.

His fingers span in circles with the tips rubbing across his scalp. This sent Hanschen’s head into a tizzy, sending shivers up and down his spine and making his mind melt into the ground. His breathing had become slower and heavier until Ernst finally noticed he had fallen asleep.

This gave Ernst the chance to look away from the book he had been pretending to read and allow himself more than a glance. He gazed at Hanschen’s chest, slowly moving up and down with his now relaxed muscles straining against his plain white tee shirt. He wished he could just see his eyes, which were covered by his own sunglasses. Something in his chest and brain made him want to see the peaceful expression on his face.

His movement to Hanschen was slow, but successful. As he had managed to lean over and pull the glasses from his face as gently as possible. He had spent what felt like five minutes and turned out to be half an hour glancing between the green grass the handsome boy asleep in it. And now, he could see the long eyelashes resting on Hanschen’s cheekbones and the soft expression his relaxed brows made.

“ Ernst,” His serene mouth moved, suddenly shaking Ernst from his trance. “Can you put those back? The sun hurts my eyes.”

 

 _We all play the game and when we dare_  
To cheat ourselves at solitaire  
Inventing lovers on the phone  
Repenting other lives unknown

“Hey, Hanschen?”

“Yeah?”

“Are they all asleep?

There was a pause when Hanschen sat up and looked around the tent to see if anyone was awake. Even though it was pitch black out, the still burning fire outside silhouetted the lumps that were Ilse, Melchior, Moritz, and Wendla all laying down asleep in their sleeping bags. On the other side of the large tent, Ernst’s head popped up above them all. “Yeah, I think so, “He replied.

Almost immediately, Ernst got up out of his sleeping bag and moved towards the doorway, crouching to avoid hitting his head on the top of the tent. “Come on,” He whispered and unzipped the entrance after unzipping the tent.

Hanschen followed closely, slipping on his flip-flops that were waiting at the entrance. He watched Ernst for a moment of too, wearing Hanschen’s hoodie and a pair of Spiderman pajama pants. He stoked the flames, throwing another log on to let it grow larger and looking over his shoulder at the boy waiting for him. “Are you cold, Hansi?”

“A bit,” He replied and approached the fire. He sat on the tree stump he was sitting on only an hour ago, when the whole group was sat around singing along to Melchior’s guitar and telling cheesy scary stories. His hands were extended, trying to warm his palms against the fire.

Ernst sat beside him only a moment later on a twin stump. He sighed, watching the fire with tired eyes. “I don’t want summer to be over.”

“Why?” Asked Hanschen. “You said this morning that you miss having structure.”

Ernst nodded, as if he had been caught. “It’s hard to be new your senior year, ya know? I don’t wanna spend what’s supposed to be my best year in high school trying to figure things out like a dumb freshman.”

“You’re smart, Ernst,” He said as if he was explaining it to a first grader. “You’ll have it figured out in a day or two.”

He shrugged and kept his amber eyes on the flames. “At least I have you guys. And you’re all pretty cool.”

Hanschen laughed again, this time much more quiet than before. His hand reached out to hold onto Ernst’s shoulder as he whispered so he wouldn’t wake the others. “We’re not cool. None of us are cool.”

Ernst looked away from the fire for the first time and at Hanschen instead. His eyes were lit up, shining with the reflection of the full moon. These eyes moved around Hasnschen’s face, spending fleeting moments looking from his cheeks to his lips to his eyes to his nose to his lips to his hair to his lips to his lips to his lips.

“I think you’re all pretty cool,” He replied, eyes finally finding Hanschen’s which normally looked light the summer sky, cloudless and clear, but currently looked stormy. It was like a little hurricane was going on inside of Hanschen. And it was coming closer and closer but the second.

Then, Ernst realized that his face was only an inch from Hanschen’s.

“No,” Hanschen muttered, his hot breath hitting Ernst’s face and sending all his senses into a tizzy. “We’re lame. You’ll realize that eventually.”

“Then I’d rather stay blissfully ignorant,” Was all Ernst could say before he felt Hanschen’s lips touch his.

If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought he was drunk. Hanschen’s lips were soft, with his hand clasped on the back of Ernst’s head, fingers tangled in his hair. His own hands moved up to the sides of Hanschen’s face, palms firmly planted on the chiseled jaw he had been admiring for a few months now.

The kiss was only a few seconds long. At least the actual kissing was. The rest of the time was spent just sitting there, clinging to one another with their lips still pressed together.

They would rather do anything else than let go.

But when they did, both boys immediately broke into their own dumb grins. Ernst looked away, preferring to look anywhere besides Hanschen, who was his first real kiss if he didn’t count the weird peck Bobby gave him when they met up at the park much later than they should have been.

But Hanschen kept his eyes locked on Ernst, holding the boy as close as possible.

“Nice dimples, Ernie.”

 

 _They call and say, “Come dance with me”_  
And murmur vague obscenities  
At ugly girls like me  
At seventeen

“Hanschen, you got a call!” Melitta called from the screen door as Hanschen threw down into the front lawn.

The blond pushed his hair from his face, sweat making it stick to his forehead. “From who?”

“From I don’t know!” She called back, and slammed the screen closed just a moment before he got to it. What an amazing sister, he thought and threw his backpack onto the floor of the entrance hall.

He just nodded at his mother and walked straight up to the landline sitting on the hall table. Beside it was written on a post-it note in Melitta’s frilly cursive, ‘Ernst called for Hans’.

And so the ritual began. The almost daily ritual of Hanschen running up to his room as soon as he got home to call up Ernst. His family had stopped asking for Ernst’s number, knowing that his ‘best friend’ Hanschen had it memorized.

“Hey, Robel residence?” Ernst’s voice said only moments after the phone began ringing. Like he had been waiting.

Hanschen giggled like a little girl, grinning like an idiot even though no one was there, “Hi, Ernst. It’s Hanschen.”

There was a pause, where Hanschen was assuming Ernst was looking around his kitchen to make sure none of his family were around. Then, he whispered back into the receiver. “Hanschen, I miss you.”

Hanschen recalled how he had only seen Ernst a few hours ago. He had been there to awkwardly walk Hanschen to his rehearsal before heading off to tennis practice. But now that it was six o’clock and they were both officially home, Hanschen felt fine responding  with : “I miss you too, Ernst. How was tennis?”

“God, I wish I found this sport sooner, Hansi,” He sighed. “We’re gonna whoop some ass at the first game, babe. You should come watch.”

“Of course I will,” Hanschen replied, his cheeks blushing at the phrase Ernst whispered into the phone. “If you come and see the show, I’ll come to every game I can.”

Ernst scoffed as if Hanschen was an idiot for asking. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Romeo.”

“And Wendla’s such a good Juliet. She’s gonna be famous, Ernst. Bet ten dollars on it.”

“You could be famous too, Hansi,” He replied happily, “I can’t believe you didn’t know you were this good.”

Hanschen, now laying on his bed staring at the ceiling like a love sick teen in a movie, giggled like one too. “Shut up!” He snickered before taking a long breath, listening to his companion over the phone. Ernst was breathing heavily, like he had just had the thrill of his life. Maybe his mom just walked by or he heard someone coming down the stairs. So Hanschen continued, “So, are we trying to meet up tonight?”

“I’d love to,” Ernst whispered back, “The field?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you then, babe.”

Ernst’s breath hitched at the word, “See you then. I’ll love that.”

Then he hung up, leaving Hanschen grinning and brimming with joy, because he knew what ‘I’ll love that’ meant. He knew it meant that someone else was in the room with Ernst really wanted to say ‘I love you’.

Hanschen couldn’t help but reply, speaking into the dial tone.  “I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> based of of Seventeen by Janis Ian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESS0eKJpEZQ) I post more on my tumblr @melchixr.


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